“They issued a description of you, you know,” the aristocrat continued. “'Widdershins,' they said your name was. But there are so many brown-haired girls, it didn't occur to me…” Angrily, he shook his head. “Well, this is where it ends, Adrienne, or Widdershins, or Elspeth, or whatever you want to call yourself. I've kept my household guards ready since His Eminence arrived, and the constables are only a shout away. You can't escape, not this time.”
“Alexandre…” Adrienne found herself physically reaching out, had to stifle a cry when he flinched from her outstretched fingertips. “Gods, you can't believe this!” she demanded softly, imploringly. “You can't honestly think I killed all those people! Our friends!”
“You disappeared, Adrienne,” he replied flatly. “I didn't believe it then, but you never came back. Never came to me.” His mouth twitched, a buried expression struggling to escape his cold facade. “I kept telling myself, ‘She'll be back any day. She'll be back, and we'll straighten all this out.' But you never came back, Adrienne.”
“I was scared, Alexandre! I was frightened of the Guard, I was frightened of the-the thing that killed my friends.…” A tear ran down her face, threatening to smear the careful and precise application of makeup that was supposed to have kept her unrecognized. “And I didn't want to drag you down with me!” The older man blinked. “I didn't know what else to do!”
“So you went back to the streets,” Alexandre snapped angrily. “You went right back to stealing, and doing everything I spent years teaching you to avoid.” He frowned thoughtfully, curious despite himself. “Why didn't you leave Davillon, start over somewhere else?”
“I don't know anything outside of Davillon,” Widdershins admitted miserably. “I wouldn't have known where to start. To me, everything more than a mile past the city walls might as well be the Outer Hespelene!”
Alexandre couldn't help but smile, thinking back to his ledger. Well, no danger of boredom now, at least.
“Adrienne,” he said, his voice thawing, “I want to believe you. I've wanted to believe, for the past two years. But I don't know if I can, and I can't imagine what I might do about it now. If you'd only come to me then!”
Widdershins nodded glumly. “Alexandre,” she said simply, “we can talk about this-we have to talk about this-later. But something more is happening here, something important. It has to do with the people who did try to kill de Laurent. They're the same people who killed our friends! I really am here by invitation, and I've got to talk to the archbishop. Please…please just give me a little time.”
For long, long seconds he stared, motionless, unblinking. And then, so slowly she was certain his neck must snap, he nodded once.
“I'll escort you upstairs myself,” he told her, almost firmly enough to mask the maggots of doubt that wormed their way through his voice.
Widdershins's breath rushed from her lungs in a veritable gust of relief. “Thank you. You've got no idea-”
“Adrienne,” he interrupted, “understand something. If you're lying to me now, if so much as a single thread on His Eminence's frock is ruffled…” He clasped her arm with bruising force, his gaze burning with the gods' own fire. “I will have my guards right outside his door. Should anything untoward befall him, the only question will be whether they kill you quickly before I get my hands on you. Am I perfectly, crystal clear?”
Widdershins nodded dumbly. Ignoring the perplexed servants, they swept up the stairs, several of the manor's guard falling into step behind them.
They wandered halls through which Widdershins had strode, run, danced in happier years. Upon each, as it truly was, she could see phantom images of what had been, overlaid in strokes of shadow and pigments of memory. Here, what she recalled as a bare wall was adorned with brilliant tapestry, a golden griffin swooping from a sapphire firmament to sink bronze claws through an emerald serpent. There, the bust of Alexandre's great-great-grandfather, which she remembered as perfectly polished and maintained, lay covered in cobwebs and grime. And over there, in what had always been Andre's post while on duty, stood a stoic, grim-faced man she'd never seen. But most disturbing was the smell. Nothing overpowering, nothing disgusting, but the manor's background scent, something of which she'd never been consciously aware, had changed, transformed by the passage of time.
Something deep within her wilted, just a little.
And she noticed, too, the lions-everywhere, the lions.
Alexandre nodded as he glanced back, saw her eyes flickering this way and that. “I stopped worshiping Olgun that night,” he told her softly. “How could I continue, after everything that had happened?” He smiled despite himself. “Claude was thrilled when I started showing enthusiasm for Cevora's services again. I guess it's good someone was made happy by what happened.”
They walked the rest of the way in silence, for neither Widdershins nor Olgun seemed to know how to respond.
Finally they reached the door, and Alexandre tapped once loudly on the heavy oak.
“Enter!”
The chamber was plain, almost oppressively so. Off-color squares on the faded walls showed where paintings had recently been removed, and the shelves were empty of their accustomed trophies and knickknacks.
De Laurent, arms crossed before him in folds of black cloth, sat behind a large desk. His iron-hued hair was swept neatly back; his symbol of office hung perfectly from his neck. The desk was covered in numerous stacks of paper, neat and orderly piles that could only be the result of a prodigious lack of work. Behind him, fluttering nervously as a mother bird, hovered Brother Maurice, draped in another of those ubiquitous brown robes.
“Good evening, my dear,” de Laurent offered, a raised brow his only comment on her choice of wardrobe. “I'm so pleased you found it in you to accept my humble invitation.”
Widdershins curtsied-a tad awkwardly, truth be told, preoccupied as she was-and strode through the open doorway.
“A pair of guards will be posted directly outside the door, Your Eminence,” Alexandre said from behind her. “If you have the slightest problem, or the first hint of the slightest problem, they can be inside in seconds.”
“Your concern is touching, my son,” de Laurent told him with a vague pooh-poohing wave of his hand (and despite the fact that Alexandre could possibly have been the older of them), “but I don't believe I'm in any danger from this young lady.”
Alexandre frowned. “There are those who would strongly disagree, Your Eminence.”
“True, but they don't have my gods-granted wisdom, you see.” He shrugged. “Not meaning to sound immodest, of course, and I'd be lying if I said I felt particularly wise, but that's what the Church says, so I'm required to believe it. Bylaws and whatnot. I'm sure you understand.”
For a fraction of an instant, a grin flickered across Alexandre's face. Then, with a final longing look, he faced the young woman. “Adrienne, please prove me right.” And then he was gone, the guards noisily and obviously taking up their posts outside.
“Soldiers,” de Laurent muttered with a holy headshake. “I swear, sometimes I think they confuse their swords with other, more diminutive parts of their-”
“Eminence!” Maurice protested.
“Oh, relax, Maurice. The Church doesn't allow me to admit to having such things; it doesn't say I can't acknowledge that other people do.” He twisted in his seat and winked at the new arrival. “Unless I'm disturbing the young lady with my undignified speech, though I doubt this is the first time she's heard the like.”
Widdershins, too, couldn't help but grin. This man was definitely not what she'd expected. “I've run across a little profanity in my time, Your Eminence.”